LATEST ADDITIONS

CEDIA 2010
All That Glitters Is a McIntosh Binding Post
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 24, 2010
The McIntosh MX150 pre-pro ($12,000) can reassign its XLR and RCA ins, a boon to those into triamplification. Its Room Perfect room correction uses 121 test tones to massage your room with 112 octaves of wonderfulness. While the USB input cannot accept 122 source components at once, it can recognize that many one by one. Let us gloss over the MVP 881BR, an $8000 Blu-ray player with non-3D-savvy HDMI 1.3. That brings us to the binding posts that made our eyes pop out of their sockets. They were on the back of an MC302 power amp. The top hex piece unscrews as you'd expect, while the bottom round piece floats. Details? You want more details? It uses electricity.
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CEDIA 2010
Classé Faceplate Does Double Duty
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 24, 2010
The front of the Classé CT0M600 mono-block amp does double duty as faceplate and ventilation panel, with heat vented around the dove grey center papel. The 600-watt amp costs $6500 -- multiply that by five, seven, or whatever. To go with it you may want the SSP-800 pre-pro which is HDMI 1.4 compliant and goes for $9500. The company also showed the CP-800 stereo preamp with iPod-savvy USB input, jitter reduction, and bass management, the latter unusual and welcome in a two-channel piece. Price TBA.
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CEDIA 2010
Rotel Bows Space- and Energy-Saving Amp
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 24, 2010
The Rotel RKB-1508 delivers eight channels of 65-watt Class D. That enables it to be small, run cool, and shave your power bill. Just the thing if you need to jam an eight-channel amp into a tight spot. Price $1199.
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CEDIA 2010
Bowers & Wilkins Ships Slim Tower
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 24, 2010
The CM8 tower is now shipping at $2200/pair. This slim three-way tower includes two five-inch paper drivers, Kevlar midrange, and aluminum tweeter with the famous Nautilus waveguide in the rear.
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Audio Video News
3D comes to Times Square this weekend
SV Staff  |  Sep 24, 2010
If you're near New York City and want a taste of 3D home theater technology, head to the Discovery Exhibition on 44th street, at Times Square. It's home to the public exhibit of the 3D Experience, a 3D entertainment and technology event sponsored...
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Music ReviewsOther Tech
Interview: OK Go on the Rebirth of the Music Video
James K. Willcox  |  Sep 24, 2010

If YouTube page-views were currency, the members of OK Go would be very rich men.

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CEDIA 2010
Life Would Be a DreamVision
Tom Norton  |  Sep 24, 2010
The DreamVision Starlight2 ($9,495) was being demonstrated on a 120" wide, flat white, Perfect View screen, with a fixed Schneider anamorphic lens. Scenes from both Avatar and Dark Knight looked terrific, which did not surprise me given my experience with the DreamVision Starlight1 and the same lens (Home Theater, October 2010).
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CEDIA 2010
Wisdom of the Ages
Tom Norton  |  Sep 24, 2010
Wisdom Audio makesd highly specialized and very expensive in-wall audio systems. The utilize line-array full-range speakers with the midrange and high end covered by long planar drivers, the lower end by several mid-sized bass units per channel, and, now, humongous subwoofers consisting of two 15" PRO drivers in cabinets estimated at over 12 cubic feet. Wisdom's brochure assures us that these 17.75" wide, 36" deep, and (I'd guess) five feet high monsters are "space efficient!" But they are designed to be hidden away.
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CEDIA 2010
Pioneer's Blue Light Specials
Tom Norton  |  Sep 24, 2010
Pioneer speaker guru Andrew Jones, designer of Pioneer's Elite line of speakers and even more up-market (very upmarket) TAD designs, has been busy at the other end of the market. The very other end. The new Pioneer Audio Artistry by Andrew Jones line of speakers starts below $80/pair for the C-1 center channel and tops out at $199/pair for the biggest bookshelf model, the BS-41!
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CEDIA 2010
We are the Men of the Chorus
Tom Norton  |  Sep 24, 2010
The Chorus 826W ($3475/pair) is the latest entry in Focal's mid-priced Chorus lineup. In fact it is the only Chorus model to incorporate the "W" sandwich cone construction previously available only in the more upscale Electra and Utopia series (the other Chorus models use a less sophisticated cone design). Unfortunately, there is as yet no matching center channel or surrounds, and the availability of such models has not been announced.
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